Statue of St. John the Baptist - the sixth one on the right looking from the Old Town Bridge Tower

Statue of St. John the Baptist

the sixth one on the right looking from the Old Town Bridge Tower

The sandstone statue was created by Josef Max in 1857 and donated by Jan Norbert Gemerich of Neuberk (1796–1859). The statue of a blessing St. John the Baptist has a cross and shell reminding us of Christ’s baptism. Contrary to the other Baroque statues on the bridge, the statue of St. John the Baptist, dressed in sheep skin and a coat, seems too stiff and motionless; it was created in the Romantic style of Nazarethism of the first half of the 19th century, stressing sentimentality and elegant lines that were to enhance the appeal of religious motifs. On the architectonical pedestal, there is the emblem of the donator and his wife. The statue replaced the statuary of the Baptized Lord, made by Jan Brokof in 1706 and paid for by the ancestor of the donator, Jan Bedřich Neuman of Neuberk (†1721), a councilor and inspector of the Prague Bridge Office. The statue was damaged during the cannonade in the revolutionary year of 1848 and removed from the bridge in 1855. The statue is now in the Lapidarium of the National Museum. – In the bridge balustrade between the statue and statuary of St. Norbert, St. Wenceslas and St. Sigismund, there is an archiepiscopal cross marking the place from which the body of St. John of Nepomuk was thrown into the river.